Page 60 of Set Me On Fire

Swelling feet, needing to pee a lot, aching back, my mind catalogued every symptom, but hey, at least I’d have good hair when I got further along in the pregnancy.

“He doesn’t have any single friends, does he?” I asked.

That got her laughing.

“None that you’d want. Too old, too set in their way, not able to keep their dicks in their pants.” She ticked each attribute off on a finger. “I couldn’t in all conscience recommend any of them, but…” A sly smile spread across her face. “What about Knox?”

“What about him?”

I tried to cover my reaction by turning to the next request in her inbox, but I couldn’t be sure she didn’t see my pulse leaping in my throat.

“He’s a good guy. Needs a wife badly, someone to look after him, make him smile every now and again.”

“Sounds like a full-time job.”

My voice was perfectly neutral, my hand shifting the mouse and click, click, clicking.

“I mean, you guys seemed to be vibing with each other at the party.” Click. I went still. “And apparently you ended up kissing?”

You bloody dickhead, I thought, kicking past-Millie’s arse in so many ways. For coming to the party, for playing drinking games with strangers, for… I sucked in a breath because wallowing time was over, and it was time to deal with my shit.I plastered a sheepish smile on my face and turned back to face Judy.

“That was just a dare. Honestly, I think we’re both a bit embarrassed about the whole thing. There won’t be a repeat. I never would’ve kissed him in the first place if I knew I’d end up working here.”

“Hey, you’re both consenting adults. You don’t need to explain. Just, firefighters are as gossipy as school girls?—”

“Who’s gossipy?” Rhett walked in the door with a piece of paper in hand. He grabbed a spare chair and turned it around with a flourish, then straddled it before regarding the two of us closely. “What’s the tea, Bun Bun?”

“I kissed Knox.” I blinked, he blinked, we were all taken aback by that I’m sure, but hey, all those years working in hospitality made clear that trying to hide this shit wasn’t going to work. People talked until they had something better to talk about. “On a dare at the Christmas party.”

“Well, we won’t hold that against you,” Rhett replied. That smile, those dimples, they caught my attention until I remembered who else had them. “Just makes you one of us. Hops here got caught banging Blue in one of the fire trucks at one of the Christmas parties.”

Judy shrugged, even as her face went bright red.

“He’d been on the road for ages and just got in.”

“So what sins have you committed in the name of festive cheer, Rhett?” I asked.

His smile faded, and for a moment I thought I’d overstepped. Instead, he shook his head and forged on.

“Said the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time. You know, the usual shit. Now, Hoppy?—”

“Not Hoppy,” Judy said. “I hate Hoppy.”

“As I was saying, Hoppy.” Rhett winked at me. “The boss wants to get the orders in for the school visits. Term is aboutto start again, and we’re going to get a lot of requests from teachers…”

Time ended up flying by.From requests from people walking into the office to the emails in Judy’s inbox, I got plenty of practise fielding requests and processing them through the system, as well as stuff I was more familiar with like receiving goods.

“You’ve got this,” Judy said, clapping me on the shoulder, “and now we’ve got a lunch break.”

“Jude—” Someone went to walk in the door, but she stopped them from taking another step.

“Mumma needs yet another pee break and some lunch.”

“Oh, I can look after this,” I told her.

The guy smiled, taking a step towards me.

“You can, after a lunch break. Don’t start working through the breaks. You’ll have people in here waving paper at you from dawn to dusk.”

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